Personal Branding is an ongoing process of creating a unique name, image or impression for an individual, group or organization. It will help one to control how people should look at them. We tend to relate branding with business products only, but in the modern world, every person should have their own brand. Some may think that personal branding is only for celebrities which are not correct. Technology has allowed everyone to create their own brand through content, engagement and hard work.

The term personal branding was first discovered in a 1997 article by “Tom Peters”. After that the term started to become popular, several theories were developed by different personal branding experts and the most popular one is Goffman's self-presentation theory. Goffman suggested to treat your persona as a drama and every action is an actor from a play. Goffman further explained that it is possible to control how someone will look at you.

Social media is becoming the most popular medium for creating personal branding. You will find rarely any celebrity who does not have a social media profile. Social media can create a positive branding as well as a negative branding. So one should always think before what they are posting online as it impacts largely on personal branding.

For students who are about to enter into job market should have a strong personal branding because employers will not see you in action they will judge you by your personal brand. It is possible to develop and spread personal brand just like a normal business product. Let’s look at the process of business product branding and relate it to personal branding-

An e-portfolio can be very useful to spread your brand to everyone. It allows everyone to know what you have done and what you are up to. You can create a website for you as a portfolio.

Building a strong personal brand

Personal branding works just like a product branding. In order to be a strong brand, a product need to provide value to its customer. Similarly, in order to create a strong personal brand, you need to have something to offer to your potential employer. You will not only promote your brand to get a job, you may promote your brand in a social gathering. For that, you must have credibility and worthy of values. Everything you do reflects on your personal brand. Here are few things that impact the most-

• Your dress up
• Your CV/Résumé
• Your social media profile
• The way you behave
• Your association with people

You can always fix it if you already have a negative personal brand created. For that, you need to act more carefully and have your CV, social media profile and association with people checked.

You should not try to create such a brand that you are not. This happens often on social media. People try to portray themselves in a way that they are not. Trying to live someone else’s life will not give you any point in for your personal brand.